Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/172



This great painter was a native of Ephesus, but became a citizen of Athens, where he flourished about B. C. 390. He raised the art to a much higher degree of perfection than it had before attained. Comparing his three great predecessors with each other, he rejected their errors, and adopted their excellencies. The classic invention of Polygnotus, the magic tones of Apollodorus, and the exquisite design of Zeuxis, are said to have been united in the works of Parrhasius. He reduced to theory the practice of former artists, and all cotemporary and subsequent painters adopted his standard of heroic and divine proportions; hence he was called the Legislator of Painting.

THE DEMOS AND OTHER WORKS OF PARRHASIUS.

One of the most celebrated works of Parrhasius was his Demos, or an allegorical picture of the Athenians. Pliny says that "it represented and expressed equally all the good as well as the bad qualities of the Athenians at the same time; one might trace the changeable, the irritable, the kind, the unjust, the forgiving, the vain-glorious, the proud, the humble, the fierce, the timid." There has been considerable dispute among critics whether this picture was a composition of one or several figures. Supposing it to have been a single figure, Pliny's description is absurd and ridiculous, for it is impossible to represent all the passions in a single figure.